In U.S. Pat. No. 3,834,646, now U.S. Pat. No. Re. 29095, there is described and claimed a take-up spool latch which included an arrangement whereby a wearer was relieved from pressure otherwise applied to his body by the biasing effect of the take-up spool spring. Briefly this was achieved by means of a pawl which engaged a ratchet wheel carried on the spool on which a seat belt was coiled by a torsion imparting spring, and the arrangement was such that upon retraction of a seat belt which had already been withdrawn from the spool, cam surfaces pivoted the pawl out of engagement with the ratchet teeth; upon further initial withdrawal the pawl was released by the cam surfaces to engage the ratchet teeth, and upon still further withdrawal the cam surfaces again engaged the pawl to pivot it out of engagement with the ratchet teeth. The above described arrangement has been particularly successful and a slight variation of the arrangement described in the preferred embodiment which accompanied the application has proved commercially valuable.
The main objection which has been raised against the otherwise successful arrangement however, has been the limited amount of forward movement available to a seat belt wearer without losing the established pressure-free position, and further that a pressure-free condition can be accidentally established substantially away from the normal wearing position by certain body movements.
The main object of this invention is to provide a retractor wherein the seat belt wearer will have further freedom of movement beyond the "pressure-free point" established when a seat belt is allowed to retract so as to engage the body of the wearer.